


Hugging

by TheStrangeSeaWolf



Series: Darkness and Light [1]
Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Flashback on s08e01 Deep Breath, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, POV Clara Oswin Oswald, Post-Episode: s09e02 The Witch's Familiar, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Self-Harm, Telepathic Bond, whouffaldi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-15
Updated: 2019-09-15
Packaged: 2020-10-19 00:02:29
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,324
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20647892
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheStrangeSeaWolf/pseuds/TheStrangeSeaWolf
Summary: After the events of The Witch's Familiar Clara and the Doctor relax in the TARDIS library. Well... Clara relaxes but could really use a hug after the events, leading to the question why this version of the Doctor is so reluctant to such a simple thing. Clara is determined to find out and the answer is not as simple as it would seem.





	Hugging

**Author's Note:**

> Living over 2,000 years, seeing all sorts of cruelties, being tortured, losing one companion after the other and not developing any form of depression or PTSD? Give me a break! This is something that always bothered me. In my head the twelfth incarnation of the Doctor is the one who has to suffer for all the things that have bottled up inside him during his past incarnations. He is the living, walking PTSD (I mean, even [Psychology Today](https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/beyond-heroes-and-villains/201612/post-time-war-stress-disorder-doctor-whos-secret-symptom) got that memo) which explains a lot, from odd behavior, outright dangerous decisions, reluctancy to letting someone come close to being obsessed with losing the one he finally lets come close.  
I love the authistic Doctor(s) [Cindy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cyndi) writes and I think my writing is influenced by them. However, my take is a tad bit different. Ultimately, my head canon is still not decided if there is any sexual interest between them or if it is a really, really close friendship that runs deeper than most romantic relationships.  
This works as a one-shot but I can imagine making it a series. There are so many things that happened in the live(s) of the Doctor(s) he really should share with someone if he wants to get some peace of mind, so, who knows....

„Seriously, Doctor, why don’t you like hugging?”

Clara looked over to the timelord. He sat in his favorite armchair in the library, book on his knees, staring into the fireplace. He had been sitting like this for hours while Clara had tried to concentrate on her own book, only to find it was much more interesting to watch her companion on the opposite side of the room. During the last half an hour or so she had watched his face go through a whole range of emotions. Shame, guilt, anger, fury, fear, hurt, grief, sadness, relief, fear again, helplessness, more sadness, anger and fear. 

She herself felt rather shaken and confused after being stuck in a Dalek’s casing and just escaped being killed by her best friend at hair’s breadth. A shower and some quiet time in the TARDIS library with a good cup of tea had soothed her, it always did, but to be honest, she would have appreciated a hug or two, feeling her best friend near, alive, unharmed. At times like these, she still missed his previous, more outgoing incarnation.

Their relationship had deepened with this Doctor, however. With her mad professor, bowtie wearing, boyish and wise at the same time she had always felt a bit like a student, a time traveler’s apprentice. With this new incarnation she felt more like his equal. They were evening out each other’s shortcomings, standing in front of the other to defend if necessary, while at times totally relying on the other to be the one to save the day. Time and again she forgot that she was not, in fact, a fellow doctor and timelady.

Being this close mentally, more than just companions, more than just friends, true partners and even soulmates, why he was so abhorred by physical contact was something she couldn’t wrap her head around. Sure, he grew used to it. He let her hug him, lean into him, even stroke his face occasionally without flinching. But he never took initiative.

Only this time, when he was sure he was going to meet his fate, he had pulled her into a bear hug in front of this whole arena of people. And she had felt, right at that moment, his desperation as well as the whole depth of his love and care for her. An overwhelming feeling of warmth she wanted to drown in, and she craved to feel again.

It nagged her: if closeness was not totally out of question for him, why did he always try to avoid it? Why couldn’t they just hug now, assuring each other that they made it out alive, that he had defeated Davros, that she escaped Missy’s evil plan, that he had been able to plant the concept of mercy in each and every Dalek out there? That they were safe in the TARDIS, that they were there for each other, ready to face the next adventure and save another planet?

Just when she saw him flinch again in his thoughts, obviously thinking about something horrible, she decided to ask.

„Seriously, Doctor, why don’t you like hugging?”

He didn’t look up. Instead, he closed his eyes, took a deep breath and sighed deeply. He opened his mouth, only to close it again, slowly shaking his head.

Usually Clara respected it if he didn’t want to talk about something. But this time, maybe because she felt so shaken herself, in need of some comfort and physical closeness, maybe because she felt she needed to know and it could be important, she stayed persistent.

“Doctor? I know you can do it. You hugged me in front of – I don’t know – hundreds of people without any hesitation. And it didn’t feel like something you felt insecure doing.”

He glanced over, a worried look beneath his wild eyebrows. Those eyes. They contained the whole depth of the universe, ancient and still young, always growing, always changing. At the same time, they were the mirrors to the soul of her best friend. Right now, she saw hurt, sadness and fear. Fear taking the lead at this very moment.

“Don’t want to talk about it.”

Clara felt anger rising. He was incredibly stubborn in this incarnation. She decided she wasn’t willing to let him get away with it this time. But having seen the range of emotions that so obviously tortured him, her anger ceased as quickly as it had risen. Instead she softened her voice.

“Doctor, sometimes we don’t _want_ to talk about things, but sometimes we _should_ talk about them anyway.”

He stayed silent, avoiding eye contact now. Most men were difficult with emotions, but timelords especially, Clara thought. Okay, as she only had a sample of one, the teacher inside her corrected her, _this_ timelord especially. But this was not the first time she broke through a barrier, and something told her to keep pushing for his and her sake.

“Doctor… Do you trust me?”

He jerked up his head.

“Of course, I do, Clara.”

Now he was outright staring at her, confused.

“So, what is so terrible about hugging or what other things are so terrible that you feel you can’t tell me and trust me with? Please, I need to know.”

“It’s late, how about we just go to bed and have a good night sleep?”

“Doctor… We are in a time machine, so it can’t get late, technically. And don’t get me started on the concept of “night” in the TARDIS. Obviously, it is only night when it fits into this stubborn timelord’s plans and it’s sunrise as soon as he decides he is bored and wants to go for another adventure.” Clara said, trying to suppress an annoyed eyeroll at the timelord’s attempt to escape.

Silence from the other armchair. She saw him smiling slightly with some hints of guilt. She sighed. She decided to try something else. She stood up, walked over and placed her hands on his shoulders. He immediately flinched at the contact, avoiding her eyes.

“Okay, is it the physical contact?”

She heard him drawing his breath through his closed teeth. She felt his shoulders stiff under her hands. Did it hurt him to be touched? This could be an explanation as she knew from one of her autistic students.

“Does it hurt when I do this?”

She let go of his shoulders. He still avoided the eye contact but finally brought himself to utter a silent “Clara”. He looked miserable. She got down on her knees to look him in the eyes.

“Look, I don’t want to torture you and cause you pain. But I do want to understand what it is that troubles you. I’m your friend, your companion. We had each other’s back and saved each other’s hide more often than I can count. If you can’t stand hugging or any other form of contact because it hurts you in a way, don’t you think I should know?”

She held out her hand, stopping only a few inches from his hand, her palm facing upwards to let him decide if he could stand some minor physical contact.

“I promise I don’t think any less of you if you don’t want to be touched.” She added, hoping to convey as much comfort and reassurance as possible through her voice. “You will always be my Doctor, no matter what it is. I only want to understand you better.”

He was swallowing hard again. He took the offered hand into his and cupped it with the other. He closed his eyes when he finally spoke.

“No, it is not causing me pain when you touch me. That is not what it is.”

He kneaded her hand, obviously piecing together what he wanted to say. She saw the pain on his face and now it was her time to swallow hard, not knowing what was coming.

“Clara… you know timelords are telepathic. But it doesn’t always work the same. Some incarnations are strong telepaths, others… not so much. Bowtie me was a very good telepath. He could use his telepathic sense to the extent he wished. Much like you can open or close your eyes and thus decide if you want to see or not. This incarnation, however,…” and he let out a deep sigh “…is not so good at it. It is mainly blind to all the thoughts around it, usually. But… when I touch someone… I’m able to look inside the other one’s thoughts… but at the same time my brain opens up and lets my thoughts leak through… it takes a great deal of strength to keep up the mental barriers to stop that. It’s like you press your fingers into your ears to avoid hearing something. And sometimes, if the noise is loud enough, even this doesn’t prevent you from hearing what you don’t want to hear.”

He fell silent again, still holding her small hand in his, looking down at it as if it was some precious artwork. She suppressed the urge to stroke his head with the other hand. She didn’t want to disturb him even more now that he seemed to open up.

“I can’t hear any of your thoughts at the moment, Doctor, although you hold my hand.” She softly said.

“I’m keeping them in. And I’m not reading any of yours. When it’s only our hands touching, I got quite good at controlling it.” A small smirk that disappeared almost immediately.

“But with all the body contact while hugging it’s harder to control it. I sure can imagine that.” Clara said, seeing how difficult it was for him to talk about it and sensing she could help along with getting the conversation going. He nodded, still looking at her small hand in his large hands.

“The more body contact the harder… When you hug me from behind, I can manage still, but face to face it is a nearly unbearable effort to keep my thoughts from dropping into your brain.”

Clara nodded slowly. Then she frowned as she thought about it. Carefully she chose her next words.

“Why don’t you want me to see your thoughts? What are you afraid of?”

He slowly, carefully let go of her hand and stood up. For a moment Clara feared she had gone too far, dug too deep into the depth of her companion’s soul. He slowly walked to the fireplace, grabbed the mantelpiece, bent over and looked to the fire. Then he spoke again:

“Clara. I lived for more than 2,000 years and not all of them were good. I saw unspeakable horrors. And… I did unspeakable things.”

A deep breath followed. He stared at the fire for a few moments before he could bring himself to continue.

“Sometimes I crave nothing more than letting you see some of my thoughts. I think I could explain things better to you if I could just establish a telepathic connection with you to make you _see _instead of trying to find words for it. But I’m not sure that I can control my thoughts well enough. I… I think I could literally crash you with my thoughts and memories if I’m not careful. If I don’t shield enough of my memories away it could damage your human brain. I told you I’m not a good telepath in this incarnation and I don’t dare to try it if it is safe for you.”

Clara had the impulse of hugging him from behind and telling him she was not afraid of him or anything he could do with her brain. She wanted to connect with him to finally see what went on behind those grey-blue eyes. But she forced herself to tread more softly. Slowly she walked over to the fireplace, standing beside him, carefully only touching his right arm with her left shoulder.

“Doctor. I understand… Danny…” She felt the Doctor stiffen at the mention of the name, an aura of guilt, remorse with slight hints of jealousy radiating from him. She continued anyway. “You know Danny was a soldier. He had seen unspeakable things, too. And he killed one innocent young boy. This was heavy on his chest. You know that he finally sacrificed the possibility of coming back himself, only to make amends.”

“Clara, I….”

“Shush, Doctor. We are not going to discuss this; I want to say something else. The things he had seen and done during the war troubled Danny even years after he had changed careers, became a math teacher, helped countless students, worked for the community council, always trying to be a good man…”

The Doctor closed his eyes as if in pain.

“…he went to a therapist regularly to cope with the post-traumatic stress. He told me about it. He said the therapist helped him to understand that he could close or open doors to certain memories, painful and good ones. So, he could open the doors to look at certain aspects together with the therapist, but only if he was ready to do it.”

Clara realized that the doctor had opened his eyes again and side eyed her carefully, insecurely. His hands held still firm to the mantelpiece as if to make sure he won’t fall over. She carefully grabbed the sleeve of his jacket.

“Doctor, you have never spoken of the things you have seen and done. Or about the things that were done to you. You never spoke about what happened on Trenzalore or during the Time War. At least not to me. And as close as we are…” she took a deep breath, before she continued “…if you haven’t talked to me about them, I doubt you have to anyone else, at least not in the last few years or even centuries, right?”

A slight nod from the Doctor, nearly unnoticeably.

“I don’t think that’s a good thing. Doctor, sometimes you fall asleep here in the library and wake up screaming. When I notice it and ask you what happened you always make up some nonsense explanation. Sometimes I hear you scream in your room. Sometimes I hear you beat at the walls. When I try to get to you, the door to your room is locked. Sometimes I realize you have a bruised forehead as if you have crashed it against a wall multiple times or your knuckles are bleeding because you smashed them into something. Usually you are careful to seek out the medbay before coming to me, but sometimes you forget about it and then I notice it.”

The Doctor stared at his hands, biting his bottom lip, obviously uncomfortable. But at least he didn’t try to flee from her, Clara noticed with confidence. She hoped it would stay this way when she revealed what she was thinking:

“I think maybe this incarnation not being a good telepath is your subconsciousness screaming for you to finally open up to someone and give you the opportunity to relieve your soul from some of this pressure. To stop bottling it all up inside you. To stop you from hurting yourself to make the pain bearable. What I’m suggesting is this: What if you try to close the doors to the memories you don’t want to reveal to me? I’m sure you can close a lot of doors, leaving only a small one open so you are completely sure you won’t overwhelm me. What do you think?”

He had slowly turned his head to her, looking at her with a mixture of surprise, amazement and insecurity. And something else. Clara wasn’t quite sure what to make of this expression. Fear? Affection? Both?

“Doctor, whatever it is, I want you to know I’m here. I don’t think that you can even crash me with your memories. I was able to jump into your timeline, scatter myself into countless echoes and still am here. So, it seems highly unlikely to me that a simple telepathic link could destroy me. We sure have taken much more stupid risks for one another, have we?”

She gave him a reassuring smile which he returned hesitantly. 

“Not sure.” He muttered.

“Give it a try, perhaps?” she asked, opening her arms, but not stepping forward to grab him, like she usually did. He turned and carefully stretched out his arms, closing them around her body, as if she was fragile, nearly in slow motion. She closed the hug, resting both hands firmly on his back.

“Alright, Doctor, I got you. It’s alright, you don’t have to do anything you feel uncomfortable with.” She said in her calmest, most reassuring voice. She felt him trembling slightly as he rested his head against hers.

“Clara.”

Then she felt something else.

_It happened inside her head but felt like she was surrounded by it. She saw her own eyes looking up at herself, frowning, obviously trying to find something. Then she saw herself smiling up at herself, tears in her eyes, saying “Thank you”._

_“For what?” she heard herself reply._

_“Phoning” she said._

_Then she felt waves of waves of a warm feeling flowing all over her, surrounding her. Feeling like someone was putting soothing lotion on a burning wound or giving her a glass of water after days in the dessert. But it was so much more. Someone reaching for your hand, grabbing you, dragging you back on safe ground when you are about to drown. The feeling when you thought you lost something precious forever and someone is bringing it back to you. The feeling of being recognized and accepted after having failed miserably. A feeling of utmost relief and love._

The Doctor broke the hug slowly and Clara realized what she had just experienced. It must have been a day or two after his regeneration. The moment when she nearly had decided to leave him but was urged by the Doctor’s phone call to look back and try to find her Doctor beyond this new, older appearance, the rash manners and the attack eyebrows. The moment when she finally saw him, realizing no matter how much he changed, it was still the same man. But she never realized how much this moment had really meant to this version of the Doctor. Now he had shown her.

She felt a little dizzy, grabbing a hold on the mantelpiece.

“Why did you choose this memory?”

“It was a safe one, we were not at risk…” he paused “…at least _you_ were not.”

“But you were?”

“Moments before you would have seen me in deep desperation. You were about to leave me for good because you didn’t know who I was anymore. I was facing roaming this universe alone, without you. So, it was a good memory to try if I could separate the negative from the positive memories.”

She grabbed his forearm and let her hand softly slip into his.

“I never knew how much it meant to you back then. And I think even Jane Austen would not have found as beautiful words for it as your memory has.”

He blushed and she beamed up at him before she continued:

“But you don’t have to shield me from the negative memories. I think it would be good to let me see the bad ones, too. Maybe especially the bad ones.”

“Perhaps. Not sure I’m prepared for this, though. And not sure if you are, for that matter.”

“Don’t worry about me, daft old man!” she smirked at him.

He smiled back, then softly resting his forehead against hers. She grabbed the opportunity to project a short thought back into his brain. When they were about experimenting, why not giving it a try? Just a short burst, her wish to be by his side no matter which dark paths he would wander, either in the universe or his own brain.

“Be careful what you wish for, Clara Oswald!” he said with a bittersweet smile. “It’s a very dark place to go.”


End file.
